ETP Bycatch Issue Misused By Opponents of Dolphin-Safe
Fishing

-- Bycatch Would Increase if Dolphin-Safe Fishing is Abandoned in
ETP Tuna Fishery

Claims that the "bycatch" by tuna fishermen using dolphin-safe techniques
in the Eastern Tropical Pacific (ETP) is excessive and "out of control"
are not tenable. Instead, these claims are based on inadequate information
and misuse of existing data. In fact, just the opposite is true -- dolphin
safe restrictions have decreased the ETP bycatch, and enactment of the
"Panama Declaration" would increase bycatch of fish species, sea turtles,
and dolphins.

H.R. 2179 (Cunningham) and the "Panama Declaration" implementing legislation
would undeniably weaken U.S. dolphin protection laws, yet supporters justify
a return to dolphin unsafe fishing practices by claiming it would reduce
bycatch. The Center for Marine Conservation, World Wildlife Fund, Greenpeace,
the National Wildlife Federation, and the Environmental Defense Fund all
rely on the bycatch issue to justify their support for weakening U.S.
dolphin safe laws.

However, the facts do not support this argument:

1. Total ETP Bycatch is Less Now than Before the Implementation of Dolphin-Safe
Policies

Both dolphin and fish bycatch has been reduced significantly compared
with the levels experienced in the 1970's and 1980's. Many vessels have
left the tuna fishery of the ETP, as a result of both general economics
as well as due to dolphin protection restrictions. Therefore total ETP
sets (including sets on logs and on schools of tuna) have decreased significantly.

For example, according to the Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission
(IATTC), the number of vessels in the ETP has declined from 132 vessels
(126,045 tons capacity) in 1974 to 99 vessels (102,951 tons capacity)
in 1994, a 25% reduction. Furthermore, in 1974, there were 7,759 sets
on dolphins, 3,384 sets on floating objects, and 7,466 sets on schools
of tuna, while in 1994 there were 5,948 sets on dolphins, only 1,750 sets
on floating objects, and only 5,786 sets on schools of tuna. Dolphin sets
have decreased 23.2%, log sets have decreased by 48.3%, and school sets
have decreased by 22.6% in the past twenty years.

Even in the past five years, since the major tuna companies enacted dolphin-safe
policies, the number of log sets is down by 32%, while the number of school
sets is down by 19.5%, according to IATTC data.

Specifically as a result dolphin safe policies and economic conditions,
sets on floating objects and on schools of tuna have substantially decreased
in the 1990's in the ETP.

A recent report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United
Nations ("A Global Assessment of Fisheries Bycatch and Discards", FAO
Fisheries Technical Paper 339;1994) listed twenty top fisheries in the
world with heavy bycatch.

The ETP purse-seine tuna fishery was not among them. The discard rates
and total bycatch per ton of catch are far, far higher on a number of
other fisheries around the world, including shrimp trawl fisheries, crab
and lobster pot fisheries, high seas squid nets, and most trawl fisheries.

The ETP fishery is an extremely misplaced focus for concern on the worldwide
bycatch problem.

3. The IATTC's Professed Concern About Bycatch is Phony

In its history, the IATTC has never instituted measures to limit bycatch.
It has further failed to require the live release of sea turtles caught
in purse seine nets.

If the IATTC were truly concerned with reducing bycatch, it could recommend
requirements to curtail the number of in-shore log sets, where by far
the highest bycatch occurs. The IATTC has completely failed to do so.

If the IATTC were truly concerned with reducing the tuna bycatch, they
would institute area and time closures on log sets to protect the juvenile
tuna, as is commonly done in other fisheries.

Further, none of the five environmental organizations, that have justified
their proposal to weaken dolphin protection because of bycatch concerns,
has advocated a limitation of the worst-bycatch inshore log sets.

Only when the IATTC determined it could use the bycatch issue to reverse
progress on adoption of dolphin-safe practices, did it ever bring up the
bycatch issue.

4. There is No Available Data to Suggest that Bycatch is Depleting Any
Species, Except Dolphins.

In an August 31, 1995 letter to Rep. Gerry Studds, the U.S. National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) stated that: "Quantitative
estimates of bycatch ratios for non-dolphin, non-tuna bycatch must await
cooperative analyses with the IATTC. While it is apparent that this bycatch
includes a great number of individuals of a wide variety of fauna, it
cannot be determined without comparative data on population levels whether
the observed levels of bycatch are a problem for the populations involved."

With particular attention to bycatch of juvenile tuna, the NOAA letter
continues: "...the analysis of NOAA data indicated that bycatch of small
yellowfin from the international fleet may be on the order of 3-10 million
fish per year. This sounds startling, until that bycatch is compared with
the estimated annual recruitment of 98 million fish per year. On that
basis, the bycatch does not seem excessive...'

If finfish bycatch was impacting ETP tuna stocks, one would expect to
see a decline in tuna stock recruitment. In fact, although the IATTC has
predicted a decline for the past several years, based on finfish bycatch
rates, no reduction in tuna stocks has been reported. On the contrary,
the IATTC has documented that yellowfin and skipjack tuna stocks in the
ETP are in excellent condition.

By contrast, several stocks of dolphins in the ETP are currently listed
by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) as "depleted."

5. Claims that High Sea Turtle Kills are Intrinsic to ETP Purse Seining
are Bogus

Several organizations, primarily Center for Marine Conservation, claim
that they must support the return to setting nets on dolphins as a way
of protecting endangered sea turtles.

This is a gross distortion of actual practice. First, the killing of
sea turtles in the purse-seine fleet is totally dwarfed by the true culprit
in sea turtle mortality, the shrimp trawling fleet.

By any standard, the shrimp fleet results in a sea turtle take at least
1000 times larger than the ETP tuna fleet.

Secondly, in the rare instances in which sea turtles are entangled in
the ETP tuna fishery, the vast majority can be released alive.

Christopher Croft, a NMFS observer on tuna vessels for four years states:
"In my entire four years on ETP tuna vessels, not once was a sea turtle
drowned in the nets. The few sea turtles that were caught were only killed
if the crews decided to kill them to eat them."

The IATTC has failed to release the data as to how many sea turtles per
year were killed in the nets, not by the crews. As noted above, the IATTC
has also failed to set any kind of regulation or recommendation that sea
turtles be released alive or that inshore log sets be restricted in any
way to avoid bycatch of turtles and other species.

6. Proponents of Bycatch Reduction in the ETP Fail to Follow Proper
Science

Sound science dictates that bycatch reduction should focus on the protection
of species with the lowest reproductive potential.

In the ETP, that is, without question, the dolphin populations. The
IATTC's reprise of "what about the baby tuna?" is spurious.

The ETP tunas and other pelagic species of finfish (mahi mahi, rainbow
runners, billfish, trigger fish, etc.) have extremely high reproductive
potentials compared with dolphins.

Two of the principle dolphin stock targets have been demonstrated to
be severely depleted -- far below any depletion level demonstrated for
species with far higher ability to recover. The Northeastern offshore
spotted dolphin is at only 23% of its initial population -- and shows
signs of continued decline. The Eastern Spinner dolphin is at only 44%
of its initial population. Allowing a return to the killing of these populations
in order to reduce finfish bycatch is hardly an acceptable environmental
trade-off.

A proposal, such as the "Panama Declaration," that allows higher bycatch
of severely depleted dolphin populations as a method of reducing fish
bycatch, is scientifically indefensible.

7. Weakening Dolphin-Safe Restrictions, as Proposed, Would Actually Increase
the Total ETP Bycatch.

The "Panama Declaration," and its implementing legislation, would increase
bycatch because it would attract more vessels back to the ETP.

U.S. vessels currently operating in the Western Tropical Pacific would
be free to return to set nets on dolphins, floating objects and schools
of tuna.

By lifting embargoes and opening lucrative U.S. markets to tuna caught
by chasing and netting dolphins, in which no dolphins are "observed" killed,
a new a major incentive would be provided for more vessels to enter the
international fleet.

Even if vessels and countries comply with IATTC Dolphin Mortality Limits
(DML), when these vessels reach the allowable DML limits, they will then
fish for the remainder of the year setting on schools and logs, resulting
in increased bycatch.

Implementation of the "Panama Declaration" risks a situation that is
both worse for dolphins and worse for other bycatch species.

In conclusion, the claims that the bycatch in the ETP tuna fishery are
damaging the ecosystems of the ETP are without merit.

Weakening U.S. dolphin-safe laws would further penalize the species with
the lowest reproductive potential and would create conditions that would
likely increase the ETP bycatch.

The IATTC has failed to implement available methods of reducing ETP finfish
and sea turtle bycatch without sacrificing dolphins.